Featured Events

Sep 18, 2019 02:00 AM
04:00 AM

This event repeats every week on Wednesday forever

Wednesday Night Atari Chat returns to the forums, new and improved! Join us every Wednesday Night in the chatroom for fun and games with friends! Every Wednesday Night members of our community gather in the chat to talk about games, movies, retro pop-culture, share bits from our personal lives and catch up on the week. We also hold trivia nights and other games and challenges on occasion, which you can expect to be announced ahead of time. We like to think of Atari I/O like the bar from "Cheers", it's a nice place that we can all come to at the end of the day where "everybody knows your name". Wednesday Night Atari Chat is a terrific way to experience our unique culture and make new friends. Our new chat is hosted by Justin, RickR, nosweargamer, btbfilms76, and The Professor. Expect NEW games, contests, events and trivia nights to return. See you there!

Sep 26, 2019

This event repeats every month forever

ON THE 26TH OF EVERY MONTH

Guys, it’s time to share our love of Atari with the world. On the 26th day of each month, we’re setting aside a day to celebrate Atari, share great games with great friends, and remind the world why Atari's still so awesome. We're calling it "Atari Day". Here's how it works:
1. Wear Atari stuff on the 26th day of each month. Shirts, hats, wristbands, bookbags, whatever. Put Atari stickers on your notebooks, bikes, the rear window of your car, the front door of your favorite bar, anywhere cool where it's okay to place a sticker. Let people see your enthusiasm. Take photos with friends and post to your social media accounts with the hashtag #AtariDay. Create memes, print your own Atari stickers, make something new. If you need a T-shirt, you can usually find Atari stuff at Target, online, or in most any mall in America. Wearing Atari stuff, you’ll usually see a few smiling faces coming up to you with positive remarks. Each smiling face is another chance to share the fun of Atari with an old friend, or maybe make a new one!
2. Start a conversation. If people come up to you and say they love your shirt, just start talking to them. It's easy to get people excited about Atari! People love video games and many people still have fond memories of Atari. They just need to be reminded!
3. Share a game. If you get into a conversation about Atari, offer to share a game with them! Let's say your friend said something about your shirt and you start talking about Atari... You should be as awesome to them as you can possibly be. Offer to lend them your Flashback console for a week. Better yet, invite them over for drinks and a game! Get a 4-Player round of Warlords going. Play a few of your favorite Atari games. Snacks, beer, and a retro movie could make a night out of it. Do something fun and memorable. Make it easy for people to want to enjoy Atari. Show them where they can get games and offer recommendations on your favorite titles. Offer them a few of your spare carts to get them started on their collection!

A FEW TIPS:
Don’t be cultish, creepy or intrusive. We don't like it when other people ram their personal views down our throats. Don't do that here. You’re not recruiting people to a religion, this is just for fun!
Be ready with good suggestions. Having a good idea of what games to suggest your friends start with is helpful and gets the ball rolling. Be prepared with suggestions of where to go online to learn more about Atari, whether or not they should start with a Flashback or real console, what to avoid, how to hook up an Atari, etc.
Make it fun. Invite people over for drinks and a game. Get a 4-Player round of Warlords going with drinks and snacks. Make a night out of it.
Keep it simple. For most people "Atari" is a cluster of good memories and warm feelings. Instead of overwhelming people with tech details, name dropping engineers and "who did what when", talk about Atari in general terms. Share good memories of games you grew up with and fun times playing Atari. "Remember those joysticks! Missile Command? Yars' Revenge? That was so much fun! Did you see the documentary on Netflix?" Remember you're introducing your friends to Atari, and that chat would be far more based than the detailed conversations we have in the forums. We want it to be easy for people to jump into the World of Atari!
Invite a friend to play in a High Score Squad Challenge. Inviting a friend over to play a game on a Saturday afternoon is a fun idea. Have fun jotting down high scores, take pictures and share to the forums! Posting scores in a Squad Challenge is a fun way to get friends involved in the forums.
Share "Atari Day" on social media. Let's spread this event! On the 26th day of each month we’ll be posting events to Facebook, and sharing photos across social media using the hashtag #AtariDay. We hope you’ll join us in doing the same! We may even hold a contest for the "Best Atari Day Photo" and reward that person with a prize.
Remember, we're all "Ambassadors" of Atari's legacy. The Atari we knew and loved is gone. It's up to all of us to make sure the fun and games and all-around awesomeness of Atari isn't lost with time.

WHY DO THIS? The idea is to share Atari with the world! People who remember Atari will go “Oh yeah! That was so much fun!” and those too young to remember Atari might discover it for the first time. The more people joining the World of Atari, the better! It's always fun to welcome new people into classic gaming, and Atari’s legacy could use a little help.
Now is the time to help people rediscover Atari and let them see how much fun we have with this stuff. We’re picking a day, the 26th of each month, to do just that! Other gaming companies actively build on their legacy. They release new games based on old characters and franchises, and they make it exciting and fun to like their stuff. We wish the same was true with Atari, but unfortunately it’s going to be left up to all of us to make that happen. Let's do this!